Jason 'Lefty' Williams more than just a one-handed guitarist

Thursday

Oct 11, 2012 at 12:01 AM

Let's get something out of the way early — Jason “Lefty” Williams is a one-handed guitarist.

By JASON GILMERFor the Herald-Journal

Let's get something out of the way early - Jason “Lefty” Williams is a one-handed guitarist. That isn't his whole story.He's grateful that his story is told and sometimes it's told because he fronts a rock band and he doesn't have a right hand.Instead, the Atlanta-based musician should be known for the sounds he produces and not how it's produced.“I feel that the music is strong enough to keep people's attention,” said Williams, who leads a four-person band under his own name.He's right. The music is that strong and interested fans can hear it this weekend. It will be a night of guitar-slingers as Spartanburg's own Shane Pruitt Band opens the show. Music begins at 9 p.m. Saturday at Jack of the Wood Pub in downtown Asheville, N.C.Some listeners don't even notice that Williams is playing with one hand.“I've had people come up and say ‘I sat hear listening for two hours before I realized you didn't have a hand,'” he said.On his website, Williams shows the process for making the pick he plays with, which is attached to a strap he wears on his right arm.He recently made three picks to help get him through the next group of shows. He plays with a pick until he wears it down and then replaces it. Same with the strap.Williams once could go a year or more without changing a guitar pick, but now he may have to change after one show.“I'm playing harder than I ever have,” he said.Williams picked up the guitar early and joined bands in his tween years. He's released two albums with the Lefty Williams Band and they are currently working on more new material.“I'm pinched as a blues guy a lot, but that's false,” he said. “We do some blues, but we do blues the same way Led Zeppelin did blues. It's there and ever present in the music, but we're more of a rock band and, to be frank, we're more of a Southern rock band.”New material has flowed recently from Williams' pen as he's written a handful of songs in the past month.The band has been in the studio recording and have the drums laid down with some bass and vocals recorded. Williams said they have enough songs to release two albums in a short time frame.“We're a little funky, little bluesy, high-energy, lots of rock and roll and sometimes it boarders on country,” he said.

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